


that next winter

by aelisheva



Category: Little Women (2019)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, F/F, First Meetings, Lesbian Josephine March, Romantic Fluff, this story takes place one year after the events of the movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:42:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27636332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelisheva/pseuds/aelisheva
Summary: one year after opening her school, jo march goes to a christmas gala with the intent of finding new donors....but ends up leaving with a very charming stranger.
Relationships: Josephine March/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	that next winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laulan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laulan/gifts).



> happy holidays, laulan! your yuletide letter was so sweet, and i loved your ideas about jo getting a girlfriend post-(movie) canon. i had a lot of fun writing this and i hope you have as much fun reading it. have a lovely and safe winter <3

_ Boston, December 1869. _

Josephine March still wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing here. Yes, she was aware that she was invited as a guest to this Christmas gala by an old friend of Marmee’s. Yes, she knew that her only reason for accepting the invitation was to weasel one of the richer guests into donating to her school. But it was nearing the end of the night. And luckily, after much conversational nonsense, Jo had somehow impressed an elderly Dutch heiress into pledging a donation. Jo had also already eaten her plate of chicken from the dinner spread plus two slices of pie. There was nothing left to do here except put on her coat. If she could only find where they were keeping it…

Still seated at the table, Jo put down her dessert fork. None of the other diners looked up at the noise. She picked it up again and plopped it back down, but still no one looked up from their conversations. She sighed. Smoothing the front of her white and green ball gown, she got up from her seat.

She began to stride down the center of the room. Which was a little hard to do with all of the people in the way of her. Jo just sighed and muttered “excuse me” each time she had to maneuver around another clique of close friends she didn’t know, absorbed in their own clumps of conversation. It seemed like they were all in their own little world, none of them paying attention to the young woman who was ---

Jo almost tripped over her skirt. Standing five feet away from her, looking up at the chandelier on the ceiling, was one of the most beautiful women Jo had ever seen. The moon outside and the lights up above made her clear blue eyes and reddish-blond hair shine. Her wide red ball gown extended gracefully to the floor in a long pretty train. And her pale, round face was covered in a slew of adorable beauty marks. She --

“Excuse me.”

Jo jolted upright, curious why this woman was now staring -- no,  _ glaring _ \-- at her. At her! “Yes…? What seems to be the problem?”

The woman’s eyebrows furrowed further. “Is something  _ funny _ about my appearance, Miss…”

“Jo. Josephine March,” she got out. “And oh no, in fact it was the opposite, miss! You see, I was actually admiring your dress, it looks quite lovely on you.” 

The woman blinked. “Oh. Oh, well thank you, Miss March….Terribly sorry about my, er, outburst just now. I’m just so used to my mother glaring daggers at me for  _ eating so much dessert _ and  _ never joining my brother on his daily jogs _ ,” she mimicked in a hawkish voice. “Not my fault I’m this plump, just the way I’ve always been. If anything it’s their fault for passing those traits onto me,” she cracked. “Or Gregor Mendel’s.”

“The scientist?” She'd recently read about his work in a scientific journal she nabbed from Bhaer.

Her eyes widened. “Yes! My family’s in the bookbinding business, so I get to inspect the merchandise a lot,” she laughed. “And I’m Norah Daley, by the way.”

A  _ bookbinder? _ This girl really was made for her. “Well it’s very nice to meet you, Miss Norah Daley.” Jo blinked. “Are you a ‘miss’ or a ‘missus?’ Either way, I bet you have a whole line of suitors waiting out the door of your home.”

“Weeeell, not exactly. For one thing, I just fancy women, not men. But no, there’s never any nice girls knocking at my door.” 

“Well, what about  _ this _ nice girl?”

“I, uh --” Norah’s face almost turned as red as her dress. She looked down at her skirt and smiled. “Then if that were true --”

“It is very true.”

“Then I would be very flattered by your interest in me, Miss March.” Smoothing out her skirt, she looked back up at Jo. “Is this your occupation, Miss March? To wander around the galas of Massachusetts and be generally charming?”

Jo scoffed. “‘Charming’ is not the word most people use to describe me. More often it’s ‘that loud young woman who’s always covered in ink from drafting up her newest book.’”

“So you’re an author!”

“And a published one,” she puffed with pride. “I’m also a teacher, I just set up a new public school on my late aunt’s property in Concord. I was left the house in her will.”

“Oh! I bet it’s the Harvard of elementary education.”

“It’s not much, really,” she smiled. “Right now the only teachers are me, my sisters Amy and Meg, and my professor friend Friedrich Bhaer.” (To be more precise, he was Jo’s “professor friend who she would’ve courted had she not realized a few months ago that she only fancied women.” But that was far too long of a title.) “You said that your family’s in bookbinding?”

Norah nodded. “Has been since we immigrated to Boston from Ireland decades ago. We work with all sorts of authors and companies. Mostly books about science or history or language. That’s why I know so many useless little bits of knowledge.”

“Knowledge is never useless,” Jo replied gallantly. “What little bits can you tell me? About anything?”

“For one thing…” she smiled, “my name Norah is an Irish version of the name Eleanor. Like Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen consort of England and France. And your name Josephine is the female form of the male name Joseph, which is Hebrew for ‘he will add.’”

“What does  _ that _ mean?”

“I have no idea!” Norah laughed. “And that is why it’s useless information.”

“No it’s not, I think it’s very interesting.”

Norah shoved Jo on the shoulder. “Oh, you’re just saying that because you fancy me.”

Clumps of people rushed past them. The night was getting darker outside, and more and more people were starting to leave.

“I’ll write to you,” Norah said, “as much as I can.”

“And Boston isn’t too far from Concord,” Jo responded, “maybe we could visit each other some time?”

“Oh yes,” Norah grinned, “I would like that very much, Josephine.”

“As would I.”


End file.
